Technical Assessment of Hybrid Powertrains for Energy-efficient Heavy-Duty Vehicles

This article presents the approach used for the design optimization of heavy vehicles such as urban buses and
delivery trucks as a part or the ORCA European Project. A methodology to find the optimal combination of
hardware components and energy management strategy is presented and the use cases where it will be applied are
described.
To achieve the optimal results, the vehicles need to be modeled with an appropriated methodology that allows for
both performance evaluation and energy consumption assessment in short times. To achieve both objectives, the
“forward” vehicle modeling, together with static or “low fidelity” models is proposed. Several simulation examples
in both electric and conventional mode are given. These models will be used to assess several potential vehicles
design, assess their performance, consumption and eventually estimate the total cost of ownership.